WATCH: Forensics team in action on M3

THE nightmare is over for a Southsea grandfather who has finally arrived home after nine weeks of house arrest in Dubai.

Steve Grant, 58, finally had his passport returned after it was confiscated by the authorities when he flew to the Gulf state in a desperate bid to see his abducted grandchildren.

It just feels so good to be out and back on British soil

Steve Grant

Mr Grant said he was relieved to be home at last.

‘It just feels so good to be out and back on British soil,’ he said.

‘It’s been nine weeks exactly that I travelled over there. It should never have been that long and drawn out.’

The grandchildren, 10-year-old Aisha and her seven-year-old brother Faris, are in Oman with their paternal grandmother.

Their father, Usama Al-Barwani is now in jail in the UK, having taken the children illegally from their Portsmouth home during a visit to his estranged partner, Mr Grant’s daughter, Lacey Plato, in 2012.

Mr Grant wanted to visit the children to make sure they were safe, but never got to see them because he was arrested at Dubai’s airport after allegations of threatening to kill the youngsters’ Omani grandfather, Badar Mohammed Al-Barwani.

Mr Grant said: ‘After a lot of hard work I got my passport back from the public prosecutor.

‘Then, when I eventually got to the airport this morning there was more paperwork to do that I hadn’t been told about but I rushed around and got it done.’

Mr Grant said he was now looking forward to getting his life back on track, although the thought of the children being stuck in Oman still haunts him.

‘I’m looking forward to sorting my life out again,’ he said.

‘I’m going to have to sort work out and I think I’ve also got a pile of bills that need taking care of.

‘In the background we’ve still got the children issue that hasn’t gone away.’